KP sports to witness massive upgradation: Junaid

ISLAMABAD: The government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) has upgraded the entire sports system and working in the province in an effort to make it more professional and result-oriented.

Talking to ‘The News’ Director General Sports Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Junaid Khan said that the provincial government has undertaken the restructuring of the administrative setup of Directorate General of Sports. “Under this landmark initiative of the government, the post of Director General has been raised from BS-19 to BS-20 to make it at par with Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) and Punjab Sports Board.

Furthermore, KP Finance Department has upgraded three posts of directors (operations, development and women sports) in BS-19. Moreover, four additional posts of deputy directors — one each for sports operations, administration and accounts, development and technical engineering projects — have been created as well.”

Junaid added that sevens posts of district sports’ officers at the divisional headquarters have already been upgraded from BS17 to BS-18.

“While the remaining 18 posts of deputy district sports officers BS-16 have been upgraded to district sports officer BS-17. Since the provincial government has substantially increased the developmental spending in sports sector and more than 100 new sports facilities have been created and rehabilitated in the past five years, therefore, the provincial transport authorisation committee of the administration department of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has approved official vehicle authorisation for all the district sports officers, assistant directors, deputy directors and regional sports officers.”

In a major decision, the KP government has decided that a senior post of Chief Coach (BS-18) would be created at the provincial level.

“This step has been taken to supervise the professional sports coaching of seven newly-created posts of senior coach BS-17 at seven divisional headquarters. These coaches will in-turn supervise the activities of junior coaches BS-10 appointed for individual games.

“Provincial government has successfully created 49 posts of junior coaches, seven each at every divisional headquarter. Here it is pertinent to mention that a sports facility without a coach is more like a school without a teacher. Therefore, Directorate of Sports’ plan is to acquire and appoint services of professional coaches of national repute at major sports facilities,” Junaid said.

He added that the appointment of all the junior coaches will be taken through NTS in compliance with the provisions of appointment. Junaid said that soon ten posts of district sports officer, seven administrators, five senior coaches will be advertised through KP Public Service Commission.

“Moreover, 49 junior coaches will be recruited from November onwards through NTS. With the successful restructuring of Directorate of Sports and appointment of technical human resource, the sports department will be fully equipped and capable of ensuring realisation of the ultimate goal of effective sports promotion across the province.”